


tell the world i'm coming home

by flashheart



Category: The London Life (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Politics, Complicated Relationships, F/M, Frances Howard has the emotional range of a teaspoon, Infidelity, Past Teacher-Student Relationship (implied)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:34:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27047311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashheart/pseuds/flashheart
Summary: Frances Howard leaves behind the bright lights of New York and Sarah Lawrence for her Montana hometown when her professor asks her to run his congressional office. Coming back might have been a mistake.
Relationships: Edmund Tavistock-Whitby/Cordelia Tavistock-Whitby, Frances Howard/Alfred Cole, Frances Howard/Edmund Tavistock-Whitby





	1. Chapter 1

‘Now, what’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?’

The woman’s glare was dark as she slipped into a seat at the end of the empty bar, but not quite dark enough to knock the smile off of Alfie Cole’s face.

‘Okay, fair, it’s not a great line. Here, what about—’

‘Whiskey,’ she said, shrugging off her tailored jacket and hanging it on the back of the stool. He got the impression that, had she been at home, she’d have kicked her shoes off too: a pair of viciously pointed heels. He glanced at the clock, which read 10:03, and then back to her. ‘Double,’ she added, almost defiantly. Daring him to make something of it, he reckoned. He shrugged and reached for the bottle of Laphroaig on the top shelf. As she pulled her purse out, he shook his head. 

‘First one’s on me,’ he said. At the arch of her brow, he added: ‘if only ‘cause I can tell you’re gonna want more than one.’ He took a moment to pour two neat measures of whiskey into a glass. ‘And I’m pretty sure I know who your brother is, so I know you’re good for the rest.’ He slid the drink across to her and nodded. ‘Miss Howard.’

Frances Howard picked up her glass with a scowl she had evidently learned at her brother’s knee because he doubted it was a product of her big-city education. It was common enough knowledge that John Howard’s little sister had escaped Mayfair as soon as she possibly could, leaving her family’s ranch for the bright lights of New York and Sarah Lawrence. What she was doing back here now was anyone’s guess -- but gone was the sullen teenager he remembered and in her place sat a stern-looking but very pretty young lady.

Sat at his bar, as it goes.

He wasn’t going to complain.


	2. Chapter 2

‘He’s so fuckin’ _awful_.’

‘Watch your language you little shit,’ Alfie said mildly. Constance rolled her eyes at her brother and took a sip of her cider. 

‘I just don’t understand how someone so _obviously_ a sleaze got elected so easily.’

Alfie peered over her shoulder at her laptop screen, looking at some kind of live stream. A minute later, he realised it was their new congressman at some official…thing…somewhere.

'He always seemed alright to me,' he said, and lost interest until Constance made a little noise of recognition.

‘Isn’t that John Howard’s sister?’

And the interest was back. He took a second look and – yes. There was Fran, not looking up as she leaned in to murmur something to the congressman, her thumbs flying over the screen of her phone. 

‘I thought I’d seen her around,’ said Constance thoughtfully. ‘He’s opening up a district office in the next town over.’

‘You reckon she’s working for him?’ asked Alfie. Fran had been in and out of the bar on a fairly regular basis recently, aside from that one morning visit. Same drink and chair every time and, thinking about it, he could probably set a clock to it. Long office hours.

‘Rather her than me,’ Constance said, with a little shudder. ‘But Fran always had…I think _bite_ is probably the nice way to say it. She’ll be fine.’


	3. Chapter 3

‘I’m sorry,’ Alfie said, not looking it in the slightest as he leaned over the bar to grin at her. ‘I just can’t believe you still have a Blackberry.’

Fran glared at him, but he could tell there wasn’t any real heat behind it. He was getting good at reading her expressions.

‘I like my Blackberry. Sue me.’

She turned back to her phone and Alfie took this opportunity, whilst pouring her another drink, to list the many, many things she was missing out on by not having the latest iPhone. She rolled her eyes, but she didn’t get up to leave. In fact he’d go so far as to say she was actually listening to him, if the little twitches at the corner of her mouth were anything to go by, but she didn’t dignify any of it with a response. So he tried another tack. 

‘And of course,’ he said, ‘your Blackberry is missing one more, very, _very_ important thing.’

Fran groaned.

‘Don’t even—’

‘My number,’ he said, beaming at her.

A flurry of expressions seemed to cross her face, her mouth eventually twisting in what looked like an attempt to hold back a smile.

‘You are _insufferable_ ,’ she said, pulling a napkin towards her and writing down her number in a surprisingly messy scrawl. ‘I’m leaving now.’ She slipped neatly from her seat, her long dark hair swinging in front of her face but it wasn’t quite enough to hide the pink, pleased flush on her cheeks.

‘I’ll call you!’


	4. Chapter 4

‘I hate Montana,’ Fran said. She’d never said that out loud before. She hadn't meant to say it out loud in the first place, and she did a tally of how much she'd had to drink that evening. Not that much, but maybe more than she'd meant to. She'd been staring absently out of the window and ignoring her laptop, and she snapped it shut with a sigh. Clearly she wasn't getting any work done this evening. 

‘Yeah?’ said Alfie, glancing up at her from where he was drying the glasses and where some pretty thing in flannel was trying to catch his eye. She felt a tug of selfish satisfaction in her gut as he gestured for Chrissie to deal with the other girl and turned his attention to her instead. ‘Why’d you come back then? Your family?’

‘Work,’ she said, with a slight shrug of her shoulder. ‘What else?’

‘Figures.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘ _Well_ ,' he said, leaning in as if he were letting her in on some kind of secret. 'I never exactly took you for a home bird, Sarah Lawrence.’

She hadn’t known he knew where she’d gone to college, but she supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised. Not much else to talk about in a town like this except your neighbours.

‘Just can’t seem to get rid of the damn place. Go to college, meet this lawyer who you _know_ is gonna do something amazing, you know he's going places and he wants to take you with him – except it turns out he’s from _goddamn_ Helena and he’s gonna drag you back to the middle of nowhere kicking and screaming.’

'You met Whitby in college?' 

She nodded. 

'He wasn’t the congressman then, obviously. He was working in the law department -- he was my tutor, actually, the whole time I was there. And when he decided to run he came to me.’ There was no small degree of pride in that statement. She couldn't help it, she remembered the call like it was yesterday. Alfie nodded slowly. At some point during the conversation he’d moved closer to her, elbows resting on the bar just a little way from hers 'Didn't realise until it was too late that it would mean I'd be coming back.'

‘It’s not all bad here,’ he said. ‘Right?’

‘I can see some appeal,’ she said drily. As his grin grew wider, she added: ‘spending time with my nephew's been nice.'

He clapped a hand to his chest in mock pain.

'Ouch. Guess I was asking for that.'

The corner of her mouth twitched up as she absently drummed her fingers on the lid of her laptop.

'Guess you were.'

'What would you be doing otherwise? If you weren't here?'

'Same thing, different state. I guess.'

'No,' he said, 'no way. There's no _way_ you don't have it mapped out. Vision boarded. Whatever.'

'...I don't know what you mean,' she said, but she'd hesitated a split second too long and he pounced on it.

'Come on,' he said. 'Our secret.' He reached up for a glass from the shelf hanging above the bar, and Fran's eyes automatically tracked to the strip of surprisingly pale skin above his belt before catching herself. 'There's a drink in it for you, if you tell me.'

'I don't understand how you're still operating if this how your business model works.'

'Bartenders have always traded in secrets,' said Alfie with a grin. He tapped the glass on the bar and reached for the bottle, as if her telling him was inevitable. She was vaguely horrified to realise that it _was_.

‘I want–’ she said, and then she sighed. ‘I _always_ wanted to work for Senator Osgood. Ever since I got old enough to understand what a senator was. I'm going to get him to run, one day. He has to.'

He smiled at that.

‘What?’

‘No, it’s just…Osgood?’ 

She glared at him.

‘What about it?’

‘You’re secretly a starry-eyed idealist. I knew it.’

‘I am _not_.’

‘Oh come on. I don’t know politics but even I know him.’ Alfie beamed. ‘You want to change the world. You want to make things _better_. You want _world peace_ , Frances Howard.’

‘Osgood doesn’t have a monopoly on world peace. Everyone wants world peace,’ said Fran.

‘No they don’t.’

‘Who doesn’t want world peace?’ she said.

‘Weapons manufacturers. The military-industrial complex. Politicians.’ He paused, pouring dark amber whiskey into the two glasses. ‘Politicians who are weapons manufacturers in the military-industrial complex.’

‘ _Besides_ them.’

‘It’s not a bad thing,’ he said. ‘I’m not making fun of you for it. It’s just nice to know you’re not as mean as you try to be.’ He poured two drinks, and pushed one of them over to her. He waited for her to pick it up before holding out his own. ‘To world peace.’ She rolled her eyes and he shook his head. ‘Nope. You want the free drink, make the toast.’

She stared at him a moment more, and then: 'I didn't finish telling you my plan.'

'No?'

'I get him elected to the White House. Work as his chief of staff. We do four years and then I get him elected again. We do four _more_ years and...then I launch my own platform off of that. Congress,' she said, not quite able to meet his eyes as she said it because otherwise there was no _way_ she'd finish telling him this, 'or the Senate. And...then I go back to the White House. That’s it,' she said. 'That's the endgame. Everything else is just…before.’

'You reckon you've got what it takes?' he asked. She forced herself to look up at him, looked for the laughter in his eyes that she knew to expect from anyone who heard someone say _I want to be the leader of the free world,_ but she didn't find it there. Only gentle curiosity.

'Yeah,' she said. 'I reckon I do.'

'Well then,' he said, and raised his glass. 'To world peace.'

'...to world peace,' she agreed, and downed the glass.


	5. Chapter 5

Fran was not having a good day.

Between the snivelling interns, and her furious back and forth with some _imbecile_ at the DNC who didn’t seem to understand what the words _urgent_ or _confidential_ meant, she hadn’t stopped working since 0700 and yet still, somehow, hadn’t managed to get any of the things that she’d planned to do that day done.

Her phone pinged, and she groaned. If she had to answer one more question about protective markings she was going to scream.

Loudly

_[22:02:34 Alfie Cole]: IMG_8999.JPG_

She squinted at the attachment for a moment, before realising it was a very dark, very blurry picture of a bar stool.

_[22:04:16 Fran Howard]: ???_

_[22:04:46 Alfie Cole]: weird seeing it empty_

Oh.

_[22:05:58 Fran Howard]: Almost can't believe I'm saying this, but there’s no place I’d rather be._

_[22:06:07 Alfie Cole]: (whiskey emoji)_

_[22:07:32 Alfie Cole]: bad day?_

_[22:09:05 Fran Howard]: It’s a Friday night. How do you still have an empty chair?_

_[22:09:25 Alfie Cole]: well its your chair_

_...Oh._

She was saved the hassle of coming up with something to reply to that with as Edmund’s voice startled her out of her reverie.

‘Frannie. You’re here late.’ Her boss was leaning against the doorframe, looking about as casual as Congressman Whitby ever got – jacket long since abandoned, sleeves rolled up and tie ever-so-slightly loosened. It was her favourite version of Edmund; the one most like the man she remembered from her tutorials. 'Got a moment?’ he asked, jerking his head towards his office.

‘How long have you been there?’ she asked, standing and smoothing out the non-existent wrinkles in her skirt as she walked over to him.

‘Longer than it normally takes for you to notice me,’ he said. He rocked back on his heels to allow her to pass through the doorway, but not so far back that she didn’t brush up against him as she did so.

‘I’ve been busy,’ she said shortly. She glanced around the bullpen as they crossed it to his office, but it was long since empty by the looks of things, the rest of the staffers gone home for the weekend. ‘What was it you…’

She trailed off as she heard the click of the lock on his office door. She raised an eyebrow at him and he simply shrugged in reply, slipping one arm around her waist to tug her a little closer.

‘You said a _moment_ ,’ said Fran. 

‘Well, it doesn’t have to take much _more_ than a moment,’ he said. His fingers inched under the waistband of her skirt, and her body arched into the touch unthinkingly.

‘And they say romance is dead,’ she said, even as she felt a little shiver up her spine. ‘Were you waiting for me?’ she asked, her voice low and amused.

‘Mmmm, no,’ Edmund said against her neck, leaving a trail of kisses there. ‘Happy coincidence.’

His mouth was wandering lower and she wanted, she _wanted_ , but:

‘I have somewhere to be,’ she said, pushing at his shoulder.

'On a Friday night?' Edmund asked. He didn’t resist as she pushed him away, though his hand still lingered at her waist. The warm weight of it was...nice.

‘Is it so hard to believe?’

‘For a girl who looks like you do, I’d usually say not,’ he said with a lopsided grin. ‘But this is _you_ , Frannie. I’m not sure you’ve had Friday night plans that didn’t involve Constitutional law, or making someone’s interns cry, or _me_ for as long as I’ve known you.’

‘Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think,’ she said, chin tilted in her most haughty manner as she looked up at him, even though they both knew that wasn’t true. Edmund probably knew her better than anyone. At times like this it was frustrating, but at the same time she couldn't help but love the fact that he remembered everything about her, even remembered that their tutorials had been on Friday evenings. 

‘Mmm, I think we both know that’s not true,’ he said, leaning in to press one more kiss to that spot under her jaw, the one that made her tremble. ‘Stay. Have a drink with me.’

She could. She could stay. It would be so easy, and she _wanted_ it, she so rarely got to spend time with him alone these days. Between the campaign stops, and the constituent clinics, and the endless fundraisers where she had to watch him with his wife on his arm...when was the last time they'd managed to spend a Friday night together? But then she thought of the blurry picture on her phone screen, and the brief flutter of something that had felt almost like fucking _butterflies_ when she'd seen Alfie's name flash up and...

She caught his chin between her forefinger and thumb, tipping his chin up so that he was looking at her, and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. She couldn't resist making sure that there was a smudge of her dark red lipstick there.

'Raincheck,' she said. She thought she saw a flicker of something in his eyes, but it was too dark to tell. 

Half an hour later found her walking up the street to The Apple Tree, having parked a little way up. It was busy - or at least, busy by Mayfair standards, and she could see little knots of people spilling out into the street, drinks in hand. Social drinking wasn't exactly something that Fran _did_ , and it was odd enough that she frequented the bar at all. Marietta had warned her, in a text last week, that she was in danger of becoming a barfly. She'd scoffed at the idea then, but now she wondered if maybe her friend might have a point.

A little voice in the back of her head wondered if maybe it might be worth finding out if Alfie had any interest spending some time together _not_ in his place of employment. The voice got louder and louder, and Fran found herself almost smiling as she thought about it - a decent restaurant, somewhere definitely _not_ in Mayfair, a conversation where they wouldn't be interrupted every five minutes and where there wasn't a solid oak bar in between them.

She'd almost entirely planned out what she was going to ask him as she edged past the groups of people around the door and into the bar. She took a deep breath and started towards the bar before drawing up short.

There weren't any empty barstools any more.

Instead, sitting on the stool that Alfie had sent her a picture of earlier, was a sweetly smiling blonde woman that Fran thought she recognised as the local vet. She'd seen her up at John's once or twice. Alfie was beaming at her, bright and wide, and she was sure he'd never looked at her like that. The vet said something that made him laugh, and he leaned in even closer to say something in her ear. 

Right.

Well.

That answered the question.

She turned on her heel and walked back out onto the street, ignoring the odd glances she got from the kids at the pool table as she started to make her way back to her car. The cool breeze that had started to pick up had her wrapping her coat a little tighter around her and she felt oddly alone in a way that she hadn't when she'd been walking the other way just a few minutes ago. The feeling got heavier and heavier, and it was almost crushing as she slipped into the driver's seat.

She rested her head on the steering wheel for a moment before pulling out her phone.

_[23:15:42 Frances Howard]: That drink still up for grabs?_

_[23:22:51 Edmund Tavistock-Whitby]: You missed your chance sweetheart. Cordy’s home. See you on Monday._


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (credits to IRL politico Lis Smith, whose hiring story I blatantly stole parts of for this because it was so deeply, deeply Fran.)

'I thought I'd get Frannie here to show us where it is she likes to disappear of an evening,' said the congressman with a smile. 

_Sleaze_ , echoed CeeCee's voice in his head.

'I hear you’ve known her a long time,' Alfie said, keeping his tone disinterested but polite. There were enough staffers from Whitby's office milling around that the bar was decently busy for this early in the evening, but not so many that Chrissie or Sarah needed any help keeping up with the orders. He could only hope that the customers drank enough of the cider that the barrel needed changing, he'd have an excuse to leave then. 

'About, what, six years now?' Whitby said, glancing at Fran. 

'Seven,' she corrected, and the speed at which she did so made Alfie wonder if she could pin it down to the exact day. 

'She was your student, right? How’d she end up working for you?' For a second he thought that it had sounded too accusatory, but neither of them seemed to have taken offence. Whitby laughed.

'Do you want to tell the story, Frances?'

Fran’s mouth twisted in something that wasn’t quite a smile as she glanced down at her glass. 'He doesn’t need to hear it.'

'She nearly didn’t,' he said to Alfie, ignoring Fran but moving closer to her. Alfie couldn’t help but notice Whitby’s wife’s at one of the tables by the window, her eyes flicking between the gap between Whitby and Fran that had become smaller and smaller as the evening went on. The feeling of unease that had settled in his stomach grew stronger. ‘About three years ago, I’m still deciding whether to run, I hire this guy to manage the exploratory committee. Royce. Friend of a friend. He’s been there all of a week, we weren't even _close_ to announcing the committee yet and we’re chatting and he gets this phone call at his desk — he didn’t even have time to say hello before I hear this…’ he paused, looking down at Fran with a grin, ‘this _yelling_ , and _screaming_ down the line. He goes white as a sheet, doesn’t say anything, he’s just nodding along until he hangs up and looks at me in what I can only describe as horror. Then _my_ phone starts ringing. It was Frannie telling me I need to fire my campaign manager, that the guy is a fucking idiot, that she’s disappointed in me for hiring him. It went on like this, this nice Mayfair girl just cursing up a blue streak for almost two solid minutes before I could get a word in edgeways.’

‘He failed to BCC reporters on a news piece he blasted out,’ said Fran. She was running a finger around the edge of her glass. ‘He was an amateur.’

‘Keep in mind she was, what, all of twenty-two at the time?’ Whitby said. 'And also keep in mind she wasn’t working on my campaign. She was my ex-student. I’m standing there gobsmacked, and then she says: "So what are you gonna do?"'

The set up was hanging in the air, and it felt too awkward not to take it.

‘And what did you say?’ asked Alfie.

‘I said, “I’m buying you a plane ticket to New York”,’ said Whitby, with a bright white grin. The line sounded rehearsed, but Fran’s expression softened as he said it and clapped a hand to her shoulder. It stayed there for a moment or two as a couple of the staffers joined them at the bar and the conversation carried on around them, and the gesture might have looked friendly to anyone else, but from where Alfie was standing he could see the little finger of Whitby's left hand toying with the delicate silver chain at Fran's neck. His wedding ring glinted in the low bar light.


End file.
